1. The Arrogance of Theology
I grew up on the very flat prairie of northern Indiana: the land was level to the horizon in all directions. Which meant that we had, on clear nights, a spectacular view of the night sky—with very little light pollution from Chicago, some eighty miles to the north. When I was a teenager in the 1950s, my parents bought me a telescope, about the since of a baseball bat. I was able to locate Saturn with its rings—what a thrill that was! But I came to appreciate that the rotation of the earth is a reality, because while I was viewing the moon, I had to keep moving the telescope because I was on the surface of a rotating planet. When I attended college, I took astronomy courses, because my curiosity was intense: what is out there, who may be out there?
I was raised by a very devout mother, born in southern Indiana in 1905, but she had somehow escaped being a fundamentalist. Even so, from a very young age, I was carefully coached in what she believed to be the truths of the Christian faith, and at college I also took courses in religion as well as astronomy. By the time I was done with college, I had decided that the ministry was the right career for me. So after graduation, I headed to Boston University School of Theology.
That was when my interest in astronomy collided with theology. For the first time in my life, in the theology courses, I had to wonder: Just where did the esteemed theologians get their information about god? How did they know?
What struck me especially was our total isolation in the cosmos. As Carl Sagan would put it later, the earth is a Pale Blue Dot, and it’s pretty clear we are lost in space. At some point I learned about Edwin Hubble’s discovery in 1923—about 19 years before I was born—one of the most important discoveries in human history. Hubble found the data, using the Mount Wilson telescope, to prove that an impressive swirl of stars, thought to be within our galaxy (at the time it was commonly assumed that our galaxy was the whole cosmos), was actually another galaxy, Andromeda, some 2.5 million light ways away. It became obvious that the universe includes billions of galaxies, with trillions of stars and trillions more planets.
Suddenly my curiosity about who may be out there was relevant to human-imagined theologies. The theology professors seem not to be worried at all that our speculations—for some, our certainties—about god had been formulated in total isolation. There may be hundreds or even thousands of civilizations out there that have been researching the cosmos for many thousands of years longer than humans have been. We should stop guessing about god(s) until the time comes when we can compare notes with other far more advanced civilizations. I wrote an essay about this—not for any class—but to get my thoughts clearly expressed. I showed it to only one person, one of my classmates, and he gave me a scolding: “You’re hung up on astronomy!” On the contrary, I was hung up on what astronomy had revealed about the universe: our isolation, our total ignorance about what other intelligent beings out there may have learned about the cosmos.
But no, that was not seriously entertained by the theological faculty. Which is why I refer to the arrogance of theology. Humans simply do not possess enough information to have confidence that their ideas about god(s) are correct. We should hold theologians to basic impartial standards: show us where we can find reliable, verifiable, objective data about the god(s) you claim to follow and worship. Not guesswork, not your feelings about Jesus, not ideas that were implanted in your head when you were very young.
The theologians I encountered in seminary had been steeped in Christian theology since they were kids. They were indoctrinated; they had been brainwashed—just as I had been. Their very identity is deeply rooted in what they were convinced is true about the Christian god since they were toddlers. It’s very hard—if not impossible in so many cases—to break that pattern. “Just take it on faith” is useless theobabble. That’s the excuse when there is no evidence. “I feel Jesus in my heart” is evidence only for what you’re feeling. It’s not evidence for how the cosmos operates.
The take it on faith plea derives no doubt from Jesus-script in John 20, where we find the story of doubting Thomas, who was absent when the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples—and he refused to believe them. A few days later, Thomas was present when Jesus showed up again. Jesus invited him to touch the wound in his side made by a sword, and then Thomas was no longer in doubt. In verse 29 we find this very predictable Jesus-script: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”
Clergy have been pressing this point during the long history of the church. Along with the other tiresome claim—made by all religions—that their scriptures, doctrines, and dogmas were divinely inspired: they come directly from their god. Which is worth another big yawn. Don’t make the claim without showing us the data, the evidence.
Humans have been guessing about gods for millennia. The first time someone saw a bolt of lightening descend from the sky, destroy a tree or kill a person, the terror of it all prompted the belief that someone up there was angry. At the time of the Black Plague in the 14th century, theologians, who had no clue about microbes, preached that their god was punishing people for their sins. Basic impartial standards were not on the radar screen.
There came a time, however, when serious thinkers began of looking for—and expecting— evidence. Thomas Paine wrote in The Age of Reason:
“The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion. Not anything can be studied as a science, without our being in possession of the principles upon which it is founded; and as this is the case with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of nothing.”
2. The Ultimate Irony: Christians themselves don’t agree about theology
There is endless bickering and splintering among Christians themselves. Many of the devout who go to church on Sundays probably drive by a few churches of other denominations—but would never consider attending those churches, because their own brand is the one that’s true. How did this mess happen? One of the major contributing factors is the Bible itself, which also is a mess. I’ll go into more detail about this in my next article, but anyone who has bothered to read the four gospels carefully—and done thoughtful comparisons—can see what I mean by “a mess.” The Jesus portrayed in Mark’s gospel is so very different from the Jesus presented in John’s gospel. These two authors had very different agendas, different concepts of Jesus, different theologies.
But there’s also politics and personalities involved in the creating of so many different brands of the church—easily now more than 30,000. I saw the divisions in the two small churches where I served as pastor. So many of the parishioners just didn’t get along—indeed there were long-standing conflicts and hatreds. It’s not hard at all to see how and why different brands split off. And there is absolutely no reason to believe that, one day, the different, bickering brands will decide it’s time to hold a major conference to iron out all their conflicting theologies and resolve the policy conflicts. Don’t hold your breath that Southern Baptists and Roman Catholics will ever agree on the basics of theology.
If you don’t want to abandon Christianity, you have to decide how it is possible to embrace a faith that is infested with so much conflict and division. Unless believers can provide reliable, verifiable, objective data to demonstrate that their Christian brand is the right one, it’s best to head for the exit.
David Madison was a pastor in the Methodist Church for nine years, and has a PhD in Biblical Studies from Boston University. He is the author of Ten Tough Problems in Christian Thought and Belief: a Minister-Turned-Atheist Shows Why You Should Ditch the Faith, now being reissued in several volumes:
· Guessing About God (2023)
· Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn’t Taught: And Other Reasons to Question His Words (2021). The Spanish translation of this book is also available.
· Everything You Need to Know About Prayer But May Not Want to Admit (2025)
His YouTube channel is here. At the invitation of John Loftus, he has written for the Debunking Christianity Blog since 2016.
The Cure-for-Christianity Library©, now with more than 500 titles, is here. A brief video explanation of the Library is here.
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